Helping Hand
by PutMoneyInThyPurse
Summary: Ron decides to take Harry's place for Umbridge's detentions and take the abuse for a few days. Hermione helps. Cameos from Neville, Luna, and the rest of the cast. Hurt comfort, so be forewarned. Trio friendship.
1. Chapter 1

I can't stand it anymore.

I just _can't._ It's driving me bonkers, I mean it. He's still got ten more days of detention to go with her and every time he has to go…

It's so sodding awful. He sits there on the sofa, and as it gets closer to eight o'clock, he just… he slowly goes grey. Not pale - _grey_.

He didn't use to. He's always a bit pale, maybe it's the black hair that makes him look so pale, but anyway, he used to go a shade paler, and haul himself up off the couch and off to detention, looking not so much terrified as resigned. But that was before she started giving him longer detentions, two and even three weeks at a stretch. That was when he started changing; and of course, now we know why, now I've found out about it, about what goes on in there.

Now, as it gets nearer to eight, he slowly goes greyish-white, and then his jaw clenches. I've seen it enough times to recognize it. His jaw clenches and there's a muscle in his cheek that twitches, just a bit, and then he sighs. I wish he wouldn't do that, because I feel so damned sorry for him, and I'd do anything not to have to hear that bloody sigh again. He sighs resignedly, sort of, and then he heaves himself up off the couch as if he weighed a ton. Sometimes he says, "See you later," very, very casually, but more often than not he doesn't say anything at all, just walks off as though putting one foot in front of the other was a great effort.

He goes off knowing he's going to suffer, and he knows exactly how much, and he grits his teeth and he _goes_.

Night after bloody night.

And it's driving me round the twist.

Lately, I've seen his hands trembling. I don't mean his right hand, the hand where he – he gets punished – oh bugger it, it makes me SICK! – I want to throw up when I think of it – anyway, Murtlap tentacles or no Murtlap tentacles, of course his hand's not up to snuff, it's his writing hand after all, and he's going back there EVERY sodding DAY to have it cut up aGAIN – I'd never admit it to a soul, but I think it's just as well he's suspended from Quidditch this year. His hand's so sore he can barely write, let alone grip a broomstick – he never lets on, of course, but you can hear the hiss of breath when he grabs something too tightly, and the look of relief when he lets go. I had Hermione teach me a charm, I charm his quill so it sort of writes on its own, he doesn't have to do more than guide it. Poor sod can't tell it's moving on its own, because his hand's so painful it probably feels like quite a bit of effort just to hold the damned quill. I'm keeping the charm under my hat, of course, and so is Hermione. She's good about things like that.

Anyway, it's not just his right hand that's shaking. What I meant is that lately, before detentions and especially as it gets closer to evening, I see tremors go through him. His hands tremble when he picks things up – the other day, in Snape's class, I had to grab a beaker from him before the Dissolving Solution sloshed out onto the floor.

Oh, who am I fooling? He's practically falling apart, DA or no DA, and there's precious little any of us can do about it if she keeps giving him those detentions. And I don't care how strong he tries to look! It was Hermione who tipped me off that he's not eating very well, and now I notice it, he doesn't even pretend to have dinner any more. Not sure I would eat that much myself if it came to that, if I was off to get carved up after dinner and…

I get the germ of an idea.

I'd need help, though…

Of course, Hermione's fussy about these things, and illegal magic and all, but still, it's for the greater good, isn't it? She won't refuse to help.

She'd better not, anyway.

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"That's all the ingredients," Hermione said as they stepped out of the apothecary's. "Unless I've missed something… it should be all…" she added worriedly, stopping to peer into her bags.

"Hermione, since when do you forget anything to do with school?" Ron rolled his eyes. "The day you flub an ingredient, You-Know-Who'll dance the foxtrot on the ramparts of Hogwarts wearing frilly pink robes. Now do get a move on, would you?"

It was a pleasantly sunny Hogsmeade weekend. Most of the students were milling about enjoying the fine day, one of the first of spring, except for some of the Quidditch die-hards practicing back at the school for the upcoming match, Harry, who had detention with Umbridge, and Ron and Hermione, who were striding back to school with great determination. "Ron, are you sure—" Hermione began.

"Yeah, I am," he replied curtly. The slightly chilly spring breeze blew in their faces and he shivered despite the warm sunshine.

Blast it, of course Hermione would notice him shivering. "I just—"

"Don't," he cut her off. "Just help me, all right?"

"It's perfectly understandable for you to be nervous—"

"I am NOT nervous!" he shouted.

"There's no call to bite my head off!" she finally snapped. "I _am_ helping! Don't be unfair, Ron!"

Immediately contrite, he sighed and looked her in the eyes. "Sorry. It's just—"

"It's all right," she reassured him. "I understand."

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To say I'm nervous is an understatement.

I'm bloody terrified.

Not so much of my… _idea_, but of what'll happen if he ever finds out. Harry's been like Concoctio Volatilis lately – so much as breathe around him and he blows up. I don't relish the thought of his explosions, and believe me, if we're not careful there's going to be one, but I did say last week that I'd do anything to avoid having to look at him get that steeling-himself expression on his face when he goes off to her room, and I suppose that includes braving the risk of a row if it happens. Gryffindor or no Gryffindor, I don't mind saying that I'll just take every precaution to make sure he _doesn't_ find out.

One thing that's not hurting my ego at all is the looks Hermione's been giving me ever since we got started on this project. I'm not doing it for anyone but myself, and I have told her that a couple of times, but the way she turns those eyes on me, shining with admiration, as if I'm some kind of noble knight in shining armour, performing some amazing sacrifice – well, it does a bloke's confidence no harm at all, no harm at all. It sounds selfish and it feels selfish, but there it is, and let's not add dishonesty to selfishness.

I do feel guilty, I suppose, in a way, at getting fringe benefits out of helping a friend. But, well, fringe benefits are fringe benefits, and I suppose I'll be earning them soon enough.

---------------------------

I worry.

I worry about Harry, and I worry about Ron, and I worry about myself when I have the time. They just can't seem to abide by the rules – and really, Harry ought to know better than to cheek Umbridge by now. But he keeps on doing it, and then he suffers for it, and – well, and we suffer too, because we're Harry's friends.

And just what got me into this, anyway?

Oh. Right. Ron.

And there's another scatterbrain if you ever saw one, foolish, impulsive, addle-pated, self-sacrificing, loyal, idiotic, _Gryffindor_…

Well, I'm a Gryffindor, too, but I never take silly risks. Well, possibly. Once or twice. When I absolutely had to.

The potion's turning clear now. It's only a matter of hours. And I'd better hope I've got the dose right, too.

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Author's Note: What's a review-whore to do? My last fic got 5200 (yes, five thousand two hiundred - I was surprised too) hits and 30 reviews, only 4 of which contained details and/or concrit. So, if you could let me know how I'm doing, I'd be grateful. Note to concritters: If something's not working, I'd be grateful if you could suggest an alternative.


	2. Chapter 2

"Mr. Potter."

Harry turned to see the hated High Inquisitor of Hogwarts looking down at him. "I believe you still have another five detentions with me?"

"Yeah," he said, his tone bordering on insolent. His hand twinged as she said 'detentions', but he looked her straight in the eye. The golden rule was no different from with the Dursleys, he told himself: never, ever show weakness.

There was something in her eyes that he couldn't quite place. Compassion? Surely he was mistaken.

"I have something different for you this week," she said, and his heart sank. What new form of torture did she have in store for him now?

His jaw dropped as she said, "For the remainder of your detentions, every night from eight o'clock to ten o'clock, I want you to clean the haunted second-floor girls' bathroom. Whether or not you use magic is up to you, but I want it to be sparkling. Do not attempt to deceive me, I will find out." As he stared, she went on, "At ten, after you have cleaned the bathroom, go straight up to your Tower and do _not_ come to my office. I don't wish to have you in my sight more than strictly necessary." Her lip curled in disgust. "Understood, Mr. Potter?"

Harry stared.

"Well, don't just stand there gaping, boy! Answer me!"

"Yes, Professor Umbridge," Harry forced out, hardly believing his luck, and sprinted off before she could change her mind.

-------------------------------

At dinner that night, he regaled Ron and Hermione animatedly with the tale. "It must be Dumbledore," he said indistinctly through a mouthful of potatoes. "He came through in the end. He must still have some clout in the Ministry – pity he can't convince them Voldemort's back – but at least he seems to have made them put a stop to it. I mean, who else could have stopped her?"

"Mm," said Ron noncommittally, while Hermione said nothing at all and appeared entirely too interested in her shepherd's pie. His friends' eyes held what he could only describe as a kind of – _unease_.

Nervousness suddenly gripped him. "You two didn't do anything stupid, did you?" At their look of panic, he turned on Ron. "You _didn't_."

Ron had turned green. "Didn't what?" he stammered.

"Tell McGonagall, of course," Harry exploded. "I told you not to – oh no, you didn't write to Dumbledore, did you? I…"

The green tinge drained from Ron's face, leaving him much healthier looking. "No, I didn't, and neither did Hermione. I swear. May Hermione fail all her exams if I'm lying."

"Ex_cuse_ me!" Hermione tried to seem affronted, but her eyes were dancing. She, too, looked relieved.

"Oh, all right, may Harry turn into a spotted toad if I'm lying."

Harry's eyes flickered from one to the other. There was definitely something crackling in the air between them. Was it possible that they were finally ready to admit…? He turned his attention resolutely to the mashed potatoes. "Watch it," he said darkly to Ron. "I'm the Heir of Slytherin. I could murder you all in your beds."

Ron snorted. "Just have fun snogging Moaning Myrtle tonight."

---------------------------------

The memory of Hermione's warm hug could only sustain one so far, and by the time he knocked at Umbridge's door, he was all but shaking.

"Come in."

At her call, he pushed the door open and walked in, blinking at the hideous décor of the room. He pushed his thick black fringe self-consciously off his brow, and Umbridge gave a high-pitched giggle that set his teeth on edge. "Your famous scar won't be of any use to you in this room, Mr. Potter," she said, and her voice held an undertone of steel. "You would do well to remember that."

Not trusting his voice, he muttered an assent and slipped into the chair, barely sparing a glance for the seat, the desk, and the writing implements on it. His vision seemed to be tunnelling down to the quill, with its curiously sharp point. He knew what it was for now, and his insides clenched.

"Off you go then," said Umbridge. "You know the rule. Write until the message… sinks in."

Bracing himself, he put quill to parchment.

I— 

He stiffened at the stinging pain in the back of his hand. The hair on the back of his neck prickled at her amused eyes upon him. No, more than amused; _relishing_ it, in a way that Harry might not see but Ron picked up on at once. He might have never so much as been near a girl, but having five brothers meant you didn't grow up without learning a few things.

And he would not give her the satisfaction of seeing him wince.

—_must not tell lies._

As the cuts healed almost immediately, he wrote again.

_I must not tell lies._

Ouch. Well, in a way, the punishment was curiously appropriate. He allowed himself a surreptitious, wry grin…

_I must not tell lies._

His hand, and soon his whole arm, started to throb. The deep, penetrating hurt in his arm wasn't just the pain of your common or garden scratch or cut, Ron thought; it felt _different_: filthy, unclean, contaminated. Growing up in a wizarding family meant you quickly learned to recognize things like this; nevertheless, Ron was surprised that Harry, Muggle-raised or no Muggle-raised, hadn't noticed the Dark-object aura radiating from the quill. _Probably too busy stewing in his own anger_, he thought unhappily.

As he watched the cuts' hypnotic cycle of appear/disappear/reappear, he idly noted a few things. One, in spite of the pain, there was a curious sense of unreality about the whole thing; he felt like a spectator in another person's drama. Which he was, he supposed. Two, he noted clinically that however he tried to vary the position of the words on the lines, the cuts always traced their original path, guaranteeing it hurt far worse than if they had opened fresh skin each time. Three, and he felt it with a blazing anger borne of pain, how had Harry put up with this for ten nights running?

He'd never thought himself one of those idiots who enjoyed pain. But each time the quill cut into his healthy, unblemished flesh, causing him pain that was acute, yet not unbearable, he couldn't help remembering Harry's raw, swollen hand, inflamed from repeated abuse; he shuddered at the thought of his best friend gritting his teeth with the fear, leaving the sanctuary of the Gryffindor common room, and presenting himself here, night after night, for the sharp quill to cut into his hand again and reopen the wounds in already battered, half-healed flesh._ It must have been absolute _agony_ for him. _He couldn't help thinking, and couldn't help being surprised that he was thinking it: _Thank goodness this is happening to me, not Harry. He's had enough._

The thought sustained him through nearly five hundred repetitions.


	3. Chapter 3

She was waiting for him in the Room of Requirement, a bowl of Murtlap essence in her hands. There was a full-length mirror, and a couple of easy chairs before a roaring fire; he stared at his familiar-yet-unfamiliar reflection before sinking gratefully into the soft upholstery. She took his unfreckled hand and examined it; the cuts had nearly closed up, the surrounding skin hot, shiny red. Then their eyes met and she looked away, seeming embarrassed. "Seems I did do a good job of the potion," she said shakily. "It's hard to believe it is you."

She brushed her cheek against the burning skin of his hand, and his heart nearly stopped as her lips brushed it in a not-quite-kiss. Then she let go, and he sighed with relief as he plunged his hand into the bowl and the cooling liquid took away his pain.

"Oh, that's bloody marvellous," he moaned with relief. He could almost feel the cuts healing. "If Harry'd told us at the start, he wouldn't have had to spend a week without this potion, would he?"

"It's not strictly a potion: it's only got one ingredient, and it doesn't have heat as a catalyst," Hermione said, but he could tell her didactic manner was more out of habit than anything else. She looked nervous and upset.

"I'm fine, Hermione," he said, and smiling at her, was surprised to find he meant it. "Look, why don't you go to the common room and keep Harry company?" He didn't particularly want to lose her company, but – "With our luck, if you don't, he'll go off looking for us and ruin things." It would be bloody typical.

"It's just…" Hermione looked at him nervously. "I can't get used to seeing you…"

"Oh." He looked down at himself. He had to admit that it was funny being so short, and wearing these funny glasses. "Don't worry about it," he quirked an eyebrow, "I'm not myself at the moment."

Hermione giggled weakly, though she still looked disturbed. "It should be wearing off any minute now," she told him. "I'd rather stay till you..."

"No, do go on," he told her. "I don't want Harry finding out. Tell him I've got detention with Snape."

They discussed strategy for a few moments, and Hermione went.

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"Bad luck, Ron," Harry said sympathetically at breakfast. "Whatever did you do to get detention with Snape? You did all right last Potions class."

Ron grunted. Contrary to popular belief, Gryffindors were not above telling the occasional white lie for the greater good. "Ran into him in the corridor with his arms full of potions, didn't I?" He tried to appear aggrieved. "Greasy git dropped everything. The glass ones smashed. And wouldn't you know it, he blamed _me_! I didn't mean to do it, but that's Snape for you. Said I'd ruined weeks of work and I'd have to pay for it." He grinned suddenly. "Maybe he's just feeling lonely, you know, after losing your company for Occlumency. I know how he adores you."

Harry made a face, and Hermione looked disapprovingly at both of them. Ron had the grace to blush.

He'd had only one bad moment in the Room of Requirement when the Polyjuice wore off and he'd seen himself in the mirror, morphing back into his own shape from Harry's. It didn't hurt, but it turned his stomach. Mostly, it was just the psychological effect of seeing the transformation: the familiar shape of his friend merging into his own, the body lengthening, his nose elongating, the planes of his features becoming more angular in a way that was deeply unsettling, finally leaving him, Ron, standing there with the funny conjured-by-Hermione Harry-glasses perched incongruously on his face.

Oh, well. Next night he wouldn't look in the mirror for the remorphing, that was all. Hermione had calculated the dosage so that Ron would be morphing back into his own shape between 10:30 and eleven o'clock. He got off with Umbridge at around ten, but they'd added on an extra half-hour as insurance against his having to stay later for any reason, after which he was to go to the Room of Requirement and wait for the potion to wear off.

He poured a glass of pumpkin juice, stealing an admiring glance at Hermione. The fact that she'd managed to narrow it down to half an hour, an almost impossibly precise window by wizarding standards, was a tribute and vast advantage, in his mind, to a Muggle background. Wizards, in his experience, were never that accurate in their potions calculations: "by morning," "by afternoon" or "in a few hours" was the most accurate answer you could traditionally get to "when will it wear off?"

His gaze turned to Harry, and he was astonished at the effect even one night without the torment had had on him: his colour was better, he looked more animated, and he ate with relish. He still held his right hand stiffly, and from what Ron could see it was still purple and swollen, but at least now it would have time to heal.

Time to heal. Ron smiled with deep contentment, and shovelled sausage into his mouth. Now that was worth it all.


	4. Chapter 4

Hermione stepped out of the Room, closing the door behind her, and Ron leaned back in his armchair, his throbbing hand resting in the bowl. It had hurt a bit more than the first day, but it was still pretty bearable. He was glad there were only three more days left. He was beginning to gain a new insight into why Harry's whole arm had seemed so stiff and tender; he was starting to feel the strain after only two days, and didn't want to imagine what the cumulative effects of two weeks running would be like.

The pain in the skin was beginning to fade. He flexed his fingers, feeling the healing spread along the tendons. That Hermione's a genius, he thought, glancing at the Muggle watch she had given him. Just a few more minutes now before he could expect to…

CRASH!

Two diminutive first year Hufflepuffs burst into the Room, panting and laughing with tension and elation. "He's gone!" one panted.

"He _is_! How did you do that?"

"I _didn't_!"

"Well, it doesn't make sense! There's no door here!"

"You explain it to me! One minute we're running along, thinking how to get away from Filch, then…"

They turned and hesitated slightly to see Ron. He rose to his full height – he had to admit it was far less impressive now that it was only Harry's full height, but still quite enough to intimidate a couple of titchy first years – and boomed, "OUT!"

They hesitated, and Ron was gripped with panic. They couldn't witness the transformation. It didn't bear thinking about. "I _SAID_, **OUT**!"

He raised his wand, and apparently that was all the persuasion they needed. They ran.

Ron flopped back into his seat, plunging his hand into the bowl once more.

He still hadn't changed when, barely five minutes later, the door swung open to reveal five more first years from various Houses. He bolted to his feet again, barely salvaging the Murtlap essence from crashing to the floor. The first years shrank into a protective huddle – had he ever been that tiny, he wondered? And what on earth brought them here anyway? Well, he'd make short work of them! He opened his mouth to roar at them to get out—

A little red-haired Gryffindor, braver than the rest, pushed to the front. "M-Mr. P-Potter," she stammered, and he almost corrected her before realizing that he was still 'Harry', "w-we wanted to thank you f-for saving C-crispin and B-bobby. Mr. Filch was after them, and he said…" Her little face quivered. "…he said he was g-going to whip them!"

Ron shut his trap. The brave little girl reminded him absurdly of Ginny. "That's all right," he said, and was moved to say something more, even as he took a step towards them and made shooing motions with his hands. "Look, I don't mind telling you it's a bl—frightful shame, your first year being spoiled with Umbridge in charge. It's not fair to you lot and it's not fair to the school. She's mental. At Hogwarts we don't beat students, _ever_. Things _will_ get better. You've got to remember that. It's not always going to be like this, so buck up, all right?"

The first years looked up at him with what could only be termed adoration. "He really _is_ a hero!" someone sighed.

Ron rolled his eyes. "Look, this is all very flattering, but could you _please_ clear OFF? I've got something important to do."

Awed as they were by the mythical "Mr. Potter", they needed very little encouragement to leave. He had barely shooed the last one out of the door when the transformation took him. This time it left him feeling a bit sick, and he flopped into the chair until it passed.

The door creaked open. He leapt to his feet and whirled, wand outstretched. "WHAT!" he bellowed.

Hermione stood there, wide-eyed. "I – er – just wanted to see if you'd changed back yet," she stammered, looking at him as though he was rabid and might bite.

Ron sighed gustily, passed a hand over his face, knocking off the silly glasses in the process, and offered her a chivalrous arm. "I was just leaving," he said.

It was going to be a long week.


	5. Chapter 5

Ron sank into the easy chair with a grimace, and moaned with relief when the cooling liquid touched his burning hand. He settled his head back against the seat, closing his eyes. Hermione had had a swot session with some Ravenclaws tonight, and without her to nag him about going to the Room early, he'd put off the trip to detention until almost eight o'clock, just to enjoy his reward: the sight of Harry's face as he went off to a normal detention unplagued by cutting quills and disfiguring punishments. He'd sprinted to the Room, downed a bit more of the potion than usual, waited on tenterhooks for it to work, and dashed to the office, but had still managed to be a quarter of an hour late for Umbridge. And she'd made him pay for it: instead of ten o'clock, she'd made him stay till ten-thirty, until his hand was bleeding and he could barely write.

But it had been worth it to see the fruition of his plan: for the first time in a while, he'd seen Harry slip off the couch and say casually, "Better get to detention. See you later." His jaw hadn't tightened in that heart-wrenching way, he hadn't steeled himself for suffering – he had just held the normal disgruntlement of a fellow going off to detention when he'd rather be doing something else. _He's not going off for someone to hurt him_, Ron had thought. The satisfaction of that knowledge had buoyed him up through the worst of the detention.

_Only two more days now_, he thought, feeling the cuts begin to close up, the burning begin to recede. _Just two more— _

Luna Lovegood walked in with an armful of books. "Hello, Harry," she said, as though completely unsurprised to see him here. "Do you mind if I study in here for a while? A few of the girls have been dancing around me in circles and singing "Loony Loony Loon, Howling at the Moon" in the common room all evening, and I don't mind that it's so loud, but I can't concentrate because they're so frightfully out of tune."

The sense of unreality that always accompanied Luna began to overwhelm him, but he collected his wits. "I'm frightfully sorry, Luna, but I've got a–" He cast about for an excuse before remembering:_ This is **Luna!**_ "-a secret I want to hide, and I want you to go away before you can find out about it." Before the unreality sucked him under completely, he said as though telling her when to pick up a birth certificate, "Come back on Sunday, OK?"

"All right then," Luna agreed serenely, not looking in the least put out. "By the way, be careful, Harry. I saw you not a minute ago walking outside in the corridor. You know what that means, don't you?"

_I know what it means, all right, it means that that stupid git Harry is taking the long way round to the Gryffindor Common Room._ Ron flapped his jaw, but couldn't seem to get any words out.

"It means you're probably suffering from Evemphkarnall's Echo. It sometimes causes you to leave traces of yourself in places where you've been."

"Is that bad?" Ron blurted, unable to resist.

"Oh no," said Luna opening the door, staring earnestly at him with her protuberant eyes, "it's quite easily cured with a dose of wum-wum juice.. That's best taken in the bath, though…"

And she was gone.

He let his head fall back against the headrest, smiling in spite of himself. He wondered why he had ever thought Luna unpleasant_. The way things are going_, he thought, _we'd all be a lot better off if there were a few more people like Luna at Hog—_

The door opens, and Lee Jordan and Susan burst in, laughing. Lee lands a kiss on Susan's lips before he notices that the Room has another occupant. "Oh, hi, Harry," he says, and Ron almost corrects him. "Listen," he goes on, giving Ron a conspiratorial you're-a-boy-so-you'll-understand-me look, "Would you mind, erm, leaving us alone for a bit?" His wink encompasses Susan, the room and his rather obvious plans.

But Ron has plans of his own, and they're drawing nearer by the second. "Sorry, but no," he says in a tone that brooks no argument. "I'm expecting someone myself."

"Oh," says Lee, disappointed, but to Ron's immense relief, seems to accept it. "Well, I suppose you did get here first. I don't suppose you'd consider waiting outside until she gets here?"

"'Fraid not," he says, and miracle of miracles, they are gone again, and the door swings shut behind them.

_Thank goodness!_ Ron thinks. _Surely that's enough people for one nigh—_

Bang! The door bursts open, and Zacharias Smith and a Slytherin girl he doesn't know lurch in, holding on to each other and to the doorframe for support. His hand is up her robes.

"Naffing hell!" Ron roars. "What's going on? Is there a sign on the door, "Trysting Place – Enquire Within?"

The girl looks up wide-eyed and removes Zacharias' hand. Zacharias gives Ron an unfriendly glare, and Ron finds that he has pulled his wand out and trained it on Zacharias without conscious thought.

"Potter—" Smith begins.

"Eff off."

"We've got just as much right to be here as you—"

Ron snorts. "Look, Smith. I've neither the time nor the patience for this. If you're not out of this room by the time I count to three, I _will_ hex you."

"Potter!" Now Smith has his wand out. But Ron knows – hopes – it's a bluff.

"One."

The girl tugs at Zacharias' robes. "Oh, come on, let's just go…"

"Two."

"Want it to come to a duel, Potter?"

She tugs again, insistently. "Let's just find somewhere else, Zackie-poo."

"What!" Ron bursts out in a snort of laughter. Zacharias turns beet red and glares daggers at him, then lowers his wand. He's beaten and he knows it.

Trying to salvage what's left of his dignity, he emits a menacing growl. "If you breathe a word of this, Potter, I swear I'll have your head."

"If you leave right now, my lips are sealed." Ron stares at him flintily until the door closes behind him and the girl.

With a groan, Ron drops to his hands and knees on the floor. And not a moment too soon, as he feels his body changing. "Hogwarts indeed!" he groans aggrievedly as his legs grow longer and his hands change their dimensions before his eyes. "They should rename it St. Mungo's Mental Ward. It's a bloody madhouse, I swear!"

He would not have been particularly relieved to know that his sentiments were shared by Harry.

Harry was jolted awake by the sound of the clock striking eleven, to find himself sitting on the bathroom floor with a stiff neck and a frozen bum.

"Wha—oh."

He'd fallen asleep over his History of Magic homework. After the first night he had taken to bringing his homework down with him – it felt silly just to sit there in the girls' toilets, especially as they got cleaned in the first ten minutes, leaving him to sit twiddling his thumbs until ten o'clock. When he first went to detention, he'd had the awful fear that Umbridge might have arranged something like the Augean Stables, but the work itself was easy and the bathroom stayed clean and sparkling; it turned out that the worst thing about it was Moaning Myrtle and her endless stream of grievances. So intent was he on avoiding Myrtle's chatter that he was studying more diligently than ever before. Well, at least something useful was coming out of his detentions.

Rubbing his eyes, he set off for Gryffindor Tower, using the long way around so as not to run into too many people. But no sooner had he walked out of the toilet than he was mobbed by a horde of first years.

"Oh, _thank_ you, Mr. Potter!"

"They told us—"

"You're a real hero!"

"You saved us!"

A miniature Ginny Weasley piped up, "We don't care what the rest of the school says, Mr. Potter! We think you're _no_ble and _brave_ and _kind_ and _chi_valrous and—"

Harry couldn't make head or tail of what they were talking about, but he was starting to turn scarlet. "Um, thanks awfully," he said, and extricated himself from them, breaking into a trot as he escaped down the corridor.

As he turned the corner, he blundered into Lee Jordan and Susan, walking with their arms around each other. "Sorry," he apologized, but Lee gave him a knowing wink.

"I know who she is, you lucky dog, you." Susan looked put out, and Lee hastily continued, "'Course, she's got nothing on Susan, here, but she's a bit of all right just the same."

Harry stared, wondering if he was in danger of catching Lee's affliction. Luckily, Lee didn't seem to need an interlocutor. "Just wanted to tell you, we found an empty classroom, so everything worked out all right for us as well."

Harry managed to emit a sort of strangled gurgle as the happy couple flounced past him and disappeared into the gloom. Shaking his head to clear it, he walked on.

Nearing the portrait hole, he found Zacharias Smith walking towards him. Harry's attempt at a friendly smile wilted under Smith's withering glare. "Not a word, Potter," Smith growled as they passed each other.

Harry had had enough. He stopped and turned to face the other boy. "Not a word about _what_?" he demanded aggressively.

To his immense astonishment, this seemed to please Zacharias no end. "Oh, that's perfect," he beamed. "You're a brick, Potter. Sorry I misjudged you." He clapped Harry heartily on the shoulder and walked off, whistling.

Harry watched him until he was out of sight, and clambered through the portrait hole in a daze. Apparently, the mysterious affliction _was_ catching.

"Have you noticed anyone acting strangely lately?" Harry asks, sitting on the other side of Ron from me at breakfast.

"Whole school's gone barmy, if you ask me," Ron says thickly through his eggs, and I shoot him a warning glance. "Wandering about at all hours of the night, barging in where they're not wanted—"

I manage to kick him under the table and he finally shuts up, but now Harry's taken up the tale. "You said it!" he says with feeling. "Shouting at you one minute, grinning like idiots the next – you never know what they're on about—"

At that moment, Luna Lovegood passes the Gryffindor table. "Morning, Harry," she says shyly. "Remember what I told you about Evemphkarnall's Echo?" Harry stares mutely as she goes on: "Well, I just remembered, it can also be cured with half a cup of powdered quinquilly leaves stirred into a little lemon juice, but they have to be gathered at the full moon." And with that, she glides out of the dining hall.

"It's even affected the Ravenclaws," I jump into the void. Harry is looking after her as though unsure whether to have himself or her admitted to the Emergency Mental Unit. "I think it's Umbridge being here, she's making everyone nervous. No-one's themselves these days. Don't you agree, Ron?" I prod him, acquainting him again with my foot.

"Oh… yeah." He's red to the tips of his ears. "That's got to be it. I'm not myself myself. Umbridge, yeah, what else could it be, really?"

"How's your hand, Harry?" I babble on, desperate for a change of subject. Reaching across Ron, I grab Harry's right hand as it moves towards the toast. He seems embarrassed, but I keep hold of it.

"All right, thanks," he says sheepishly, then he smiles. "Better, actually."

Crisis averted. But as I look at his hand, I realize it _is_ better. The awful purple rawness has subsided to a dark pink. The cuts are nearly healed, and while the flesh is still puffy and the fingers are still thick and swollen, it's nowhere near as bad as it was a couple of days ago.

But then I see Ron looking at Harry's hand, and catch my breath at what I see on his face – profound satisfaction, pride and affection all rolled into one. But the one emotion that makes me want to give him a big hug in the middle of the Great Hall is the gratitude I see in his eyes. He's _grateful_ that he's taking this for Harry.

I fumble beneath the tablecloth for Ron's hand – a bit pink, but nowhere near as bad as Harry's – and gently squeeze it under the table.


	6. Chapter 6

Only tomorrow left, thank goodness.

I fall into the armchair and soak my hand in the tentacle solution. I sigh with relief as the pain recedes. Hermione's brilliant of course, but scar-preventing potion or not, another few days of this and my hand would have scarred. I won't be the one to tell him, but I've seen Harry's injuries, and I know that hand's never going to be the same again.

Hermione comes in. "How was it?"

"All right," I say. What else can I say? "This concoction you've made is amazing."

She comes and kneels on the floor beside my chair, peering at my hand beneath the murky solution. "It was – oh!"

As the door swings open, she flings her arms around my neck and buries her face in my shoulder. Not that I mind, but what's going on? The penny drops as two voices, a girl's and a boy's, mutter, "Sorry," and I hear the door close again.

Hermione pulls away from me, flushed. "Sorry about that," she says, "but what you said gave me an idea, about keeping unwanted visitors out – you can't exactly lock the Room of Requirement, and if it looked as if we were, you know–"

I cut her off. "What are you so embarrassed about? It's a brilliant idea!" She smiles shyly. "What are you doing out of the Common Room, anyway? I thought you'd stay till Harry got back."

"I was on my way back from the library, and I thought I'd stop by," she says. She gives me that smile again, which is not helping me concentrate. "Ron," she says, then laughs, "it feels funny to know you're Ron with you looking like this – but Ron, I just wanted to say, I think what you're doing is magnificent."

_Magnificent, eh?_ "Oh, it's nothing, really." I try not to let my grin show, or my blush; I'd like it to appear as if I get compliments like this from pretty girls all the time – and where did _that_ thought come from? Hermione's just a friend, just a friend, just a— The door opens and she throws her arms round me again.

"Oh, sorry, Hermione, Harry," says a girl. That soft tone is Padma's.

"Yeah, we'll just find somewh—" I recognize Dean's voice as the door swings shut again.

Hermione pulls back. "I _knew_ it was a bad idea letting the entire DA know about this place," I grumble, but there's no irritation in it, and she giggles.

She sits back. "Yes, whoever thought it would—" Her eyes widen as she looks over my shoulder. The door swings open again.

"This is the END!" I blow up, jumping to my feet. "Where do all these bloody couples come from, anyway? Are we the only people who _didn't_ know about the Room of Requirement?" I glare furiously at the new intruders. "Can't one have a moment in peace?"

But Marcus Flint, with a pretty Slytherin I don't know, is standing his ground.

"You've been getting plenty of _moments_, from what I've heard," he says, and I see Hermione steal an agonized glance at me: the time is getting shorter.

"Out," I say, pulling out my wand.

"Make me," says Flint.

"_I_ will, if he won't." Hermione's shoulder-to-shoulder with me now, and that tips the balance decidedly in our favour: her skill with a wand is legendary. Marcus flinches. "We were here first, and unless you want to spend the rest of the night quacking like a duck, you might as well go now."

"Look, Flint old mate," I try to appear like the reasonable one, "women are mad. Just give us today – and tomorrow," I add hastily, "and I promise you won't see us in here again."

Marcus' eyes flicker, but I seem to have given him the face-saving excuse he needs. "I'll hold you to that, Potter," he blusters, and storms from the room. Thank goodness for Slytherin survival instincts.

I turn to Hermione. "What the flaming hell is going on tonight? Who turned the school into Hogwarts Lonely Hearts Club for effing Lovelorn Witches and Wizards?"

"The fifth-year Ravenclaws are giving somebody's birthday party," said Hermione, "and a lot of people are invited, from lots of different Houses. Luna was telling me this afternoon."

"What are they serving at that party, Firewhisky?" I fume. "With all the people waltzing in and out of here, it's as though someone sent out engraved invitations. 'Dear Sir or Madam. Snogging Tonight in the Room of Requirement. DA Members Welcome.'"

Hermione smiles. "Tell you what," she says. "Why don't I go to the end of the corridor and stave the couples off?"

"That's a great idea," I sigh with relief. I'm starting to feel as if I'm inside one of those stupid paperbacks Mum's so fond of reading. "This Bewitched Romance parading through the Room on a nightly basis is starting to get to me. I had no idea that so many of our fellow-students were in a state of… _Requirement_."

Hermione giggles, and I feel stupidly happy as she vanishes through the door.

Finally, I flop back into the chair, hand soaking in the healing essence. Alone and relaxed at last. It's just a few more moments until the transformation. I hope I can stay awake till th…

The door opens and Cho Chang bursts in, sobbing and wailing.

"AAARGH!" I open my mouth to say something reasonable, but all that comes out is a roar. "This isn't the Room of Requirement, it's Lake Windermere on a bloody Bank Holiday!" I growl at her without a shred of sympathy. "What are you whinging on about now, anyway?"

"Harry!" Cho turns stricken eyes on me, and too late I remember that I'm supposed to be Harry, her doting boyfriend.

I feel the queasiness of the impending remorphing and panic grips me. Oh well. In for a penny, in for a pound. "Get out!" I yell. I rack my brains for any insult that will get her out before she sees. "I'm sick of your weeping and wailing! All you ever do is cry!"

She stops crying immediately, which would be interesting if I had any space left in my mind for anything besides blind, screaming panic. "But Harry-"

"Get out of my sight!" There, that should be enough. _Oh, please let her leave please let her leave please let her—_

"But—"

"**_OUT_**!" I grab one of Hermione's books and throw it at her, aiming to miss. It has the required effect anyway. She streaks out as though the hounds of Hades were after her.

I zoom to the door and slam my back against it as the queasiness of the remorphing ripples through me.

Shock is an understatement.

There we were, Harry and Ron and I in the Great Hall, having breakfast. As we got up to go, suddenly Cho was standing in Harry's way, for all the world as if she had Apparated into his path..

"Hi, Cho," said Harry uncertainly.

"You – you cad! You _brute_!" she cried. Her hand flashed out and she slapped him in the face. Then she stalked off, leaving the entire Great Hall gaping at us.

If I wasn't confident that Ron's a gentleman, I would almost have suspected that something had happened which oughtn't to have happened – well – that he hadn't kept his hands to himself, I mean. I'd get the whole story out of him later, but for now, Harry was just standing there, goggling after Cho, the imprint of a small hand pink on his cheek. He turned to me. "What on _earth_—"

Ron picked up Harry's glasses from where they had fallen, polished them on his robe with what I felt was entirely too practiced a motion, and put them back on Harry's face. This was easy because Harry was still doing his impression of a human statue. "All girls are mental," Ron said. "I keep telling you that."

"I resent that," I said half-heartedly. Then I put a hand over my eyes.

Padma, Lee, and Susan had all come up to show their support.

"Don't mind her, Harry," said Susan.

"It's just that her feelings are hurt," said Padma.

"I'd say you've done much better," said Lee with a man-to-man leer that made me want to jinx him. "Congratulations, mate," He clapped him on the shoulder and they all hurried off.

"…?" Harry turned to me. If he had been an Animagus, his Animagus form at that moment would have been one huge question mark.

No good looking to Ron for help – if he turned any redder, he might undergo spontaneous combustion. "Er," I said helplessly, and then I thought a modified version of the truth would be safest. "Some of the gossips have been putting it about that you've thrown Cho over for me. So she's jealous."

"Oh, I see!" His face cleared. Then he looked at me. "But that's ridiculous!"

"Oh, charming, Harry." I pretended to be insulted.

He rolled his eyes. "Hermione, I didn't mean it like that, it's just that…"

"I _know_," I said impatiently. "But given that this is the same crowd who thought you were the Heir of Slytherin in second year, and that a lot of them still think you're a raving lunatic this year, since when has logic come into it?"

"Yeah, I s'pose you're right," Harry said dispiritedly as we headed off to double Transfiguration.

I feel really, really, really guilty. "What a tangled web we weave when we practice deceit!"


	7. Chapter 7

Ron is walking through the twilit halls on his way to Umbridge's office when he sees Marietta Edgecombe, Cho's best friend, coming towards him. "Harry, I heard you and Cho split up," she says, her voice sympathetic.

"Whatever gave you that idea?" Ron says shortly. _And can't you just shut up and go away?_

"Well, I heard—"

"Gossip, the school's got nothing better to do than chitchat," he says with as surly an air as possible. But she has the light in her eyes of one who wants to uncover a mystery. "Look, I've got detention with Umbridge right now. I've got to go. 'Scuse me." And he stalks off.

* * *

On Harry's way to the toilets, he is accosted by Marietta Edgecombe. "_Harry_! What are _you_ doing here?"

"Well, let's see," he counts on his fingers with an air of exaggerated patience, "I've only been coming to this school for the past one—two—three—four—"

"Oh, silly!" she bats at his hands, with a strange sort of smile. "I thought you had detention with Umbridge. You know, in her office."

"I used to," he says, "but she changed it to cleaning toilets."

"Oh, how _awful_ for you!"

"It's all right," he says shortly.

"Can I come with you? I want to ask you about you-know-what."

He stares at her. It's one thing to suspect girls are barmy, and another to have it proved right before your very eyes. "Um, do you mean 'You-Know-Who'?" he asks carefully.

She rolls her eyes. "No, silly! You-know-what! Your split with Cho! Have you forgotten already?"

Oh. Oh, no. He really can't be bothered to get into this, not now; he still has two hours of detention and three feet of parchment to produce for Flitwick tomorrow. "Look, can we talk about it later?" he says, hoping to put this off. "I've got detention right away." Maybe, with luck, she'll forget – a girl forgetting to talk about depressing subjects, yeah, right. Elephants have nothing on girls' memories.

"All right," she says. "After your detention, then?"

"Right," he says and makes good his escape, reminding himself to use the long way back.

* * *

It's his last day. The horrible quill seems to cut deeper each time – today, he can definitely feel the nauseating queasiness that comes with it slicing right through some of the bigger veins, and scraping along his tendons. Still, he feels a perverse satisfaction in the pain. It's not so much that he feels guilty on Harry's behalf – from his account of the disastrous encounter at Madam Puddifoot's, his relationship with Cho couldn't have been much worse than it already was – and he couldn't find it in his heart to feel sorry for Cho, after what she'd done to Harry in the middle of the Great Hall like that – but the thing was, when he'd told Hermione what he'd said, she had looked… disappointed. And he did not like seeing that look from Hermione…

..especially when she was in the right.

_I've made a right balls-up of things, haven't I?_ he thought gloomily. _Still, what else could I have done? Let Cho see me recovering from an illegal potion? _The thought that he'd had no choice cheered him up slightly. _Still, all that confusion that Harry had to put up with…_

I must not tell lies.

_Well, I'm certainly paying for my misdeeds, so I'm _not_ going to feel guilty about them. Who says there's no justice in the world? At least the punishment's going to an actual liar. _He grinned inwardly.

_Ow. We've established that I deserve it, but still, it doesn't half bloody well hurt._ It might have been his imagination, but this time it seemed to hurt more than ever before. He'd already learnt all the tricks: to write the 'I' without the horizontal slashes; not to curve the 't' up at the bottom; his 'm' and 'n', formerly formed with a down-up-curve across-down stroke, now used the more economical up-curve across-down stroke. He'd exhausted the comic potential of the mental slogan 'Save Blood – Write Smaller' on the first, second and third nights. Now all that remained was burning pain, the shudder of nausea every time the quill cut into a tendon, and a weary desire for it to end.

By the time Umbridge's 'hem, hem' signaled the end of detention, he could hardly move his hand, which was bleeding freely, oozing fat drops of blood onto the parchment. On the third try, Ron managed to drop the quill onto the parchment – he didn't seem to have any control of his fingers at all at the moment. He couldn't quite stand to look into her eyes, because the smug satisfaction there might drive him to strangle her, so he focused his attention on the pink ruffle at her throat.

"…learned your lesson, Mr. Potter."

He was hit by a brainwave. "Oh yes, I've learnt my lesson," he said in the best contrite tone he could manage. "I'm sorry to have been so much trouble, Professor Umbridge."

"Well, that is better, Potter. Maybe I won't have to see you in here again." The smug, approving tone filled him with glee.

He stepped out of the office and promptly leant on the wall, gripping his right wrist tightly with his left. A small voice in his mind asked:

Whatever possessed you to grovel like that? 

_Well, Harry'd never apologize, and he keeps getting punished because of that,_ he explained to the voice,_ so this is the best of both worlds; I pull the wool over that toad's eyes, and Harry gets a reprieve._

_Till the next silly thing he does_, the voice added.

_Well, yeah. Can't help that, can I? But this way, his pride stays intact._

What about yours? prompted Inner Voice. 

_It was him apologizing, not me._

_But you said his pride—_

_He'll never know about it._

_It's irritating when you're always right,_ said Inner Voice.

_I try_, said Ron smugly.

"Harry!"

His head snaps up from his reverie to see Marietta bouncing up to him. He whips his hands behind his back. He'd almost forgotten the pain, but now, fuelled by guilt, it returns full force. The last thing he wants to talk about now is how he's made a bollocks of Harry and Cho. He can't even meet her eyes. "Not now, Marietta, _please_."

"I thought you said you were in the loo!"

"Loo?" he repeats stupidly, staring blankly at her. _Why_ is she interested in Harry's bowel motions? Girls are _mental_, he shakes his head. With a muttered "'Scuse me," he sprints off down the corridor.

Safely ensconced in the armchair, blood mingling with the Murtlap essence, he wonders just why Marietta is so interested. _She's Cho's best friend. That's got to be it. Good thing I got away then – I don't want a repeat of the slapping incident._

* * *

_Finally_, Harry thinks as he leaves the toilet. Three feet of parchment on Invisibility Charms through the ages was a bit of work, but he's surprised to find he truly enjoyed it. It's because of the Cloak, he supposes; he's often wondered whether the Invisibility Charm on it could possibly be replicated—

"Harry, wait!"

Marietta is after him again.

Where's an Invisibility Charm when you need one? Harry looks left, right, and ducks into the boys' toilets. At her nonplussed stare, he calls, 'Scuse me, Marietta! You know where to find me!" as the door swings shut.

Standing alone, Marietta smiles. Yes, by all accounts, she certainly does know where to find him.


	8. Chapter 8

His hand's still bleeding, but the pain is gone, and for that Ron breathes a sigh of relief. He wishes Hermione were back from her latest swot session so that they could celebrate a job well done. He closes his eyes and leans back, relishing his reward: seeing Harry at breakfast, using his hand enthusiastically to serve them both kidneys, the swelling almost entirely gone down. It was so great to see him obviously not in pain despite the ugly, raised purple scar puckering the back of his hand.

He pulls his own hand, still in the shape of Harry's, from the Murtlap solution, and looks at the back; as soon as it's taken out of the cooling liquid, it hurts like a bugger, but Hermione's studying some charms that, if they're used right away, will stop it from scarring. Dipping it back into the bowl, he sighs with relief. He can't help feeling a bit annoyed that Harry spent ages in detention without telling them, without Murtlap essence; even with the healing potion, Ron's more than ready to pack it in after just five days. The pain today made him sick. And thinking of Harry spending _weeks_ in this sort of pain, all alone – it makes him angry just thinking about it._ We're bloody well _there_ for him! Why does he always feel he has to put up with things alone? Why doesn't he ever ask us for help? Probably the way he grew up with those miserable relations of his. Locking him in his room indeed. That's something I wouldn't wish on Malfoy, let alone—_

"Harry!"

The door swings open to reveal Marietta Edgecombe.

"Oh, Merlin," Ron buries his face in his good hand, the glasses bumping his palm awkwardly.

"Harry," she says in a funny tone, "See, I did know where to find you."

Ron rolls his eyes. "Seeing as this seems to be the meeting point for the whole of Hogwarts, yeah, I s'pose you did."

"Harry, I know."

He stares at his blood mingling with the Murtlap essence, and finds that he doesn't have the time or the inclination to be polite. "Marietta, could you just shove off?"

"You don't have to hide it anymore, Harry."

His head whips round at that. Can she be saying she knows about…? _Calm, Weasley, calm_. "Hide _what_, exactly, Marietta?"

"_You_ know, silly! I can tell!"

_Give me strength!_ "Tell what?"

"Why you split up with Cho!"

"Oh!" He heaves a sigh of immense relief. "And why might that be?" _Girl talk. It's always girl talk. Nothing but—_

"Because you fancy _me_, silly!"

His mouth drops open and he rises, perhaps in the theory that it's more dignified to die on your feet, only to find himself with an armful of Marietta. "Oh, Harry!" she's babbling. "She was never your type, and I couldn't say anything because she's my best friend, but now you've split up, I can finally…"

"Gerroff!" Her arms are everywhere. She's like one of those statues he saw once of an Indian witch with six arms, or a particularly persistent gnome he once encountered in the garden, who was intent on plucking his eyes out. Any moment now, he's going to turn back into Ron, and…

"Kiss me, Harry!"

"Get OFF!" That Indian statue-witch has nothing on this mad female. Does she have twenty hands? How can they be in so many places at once? How will he get her out of here before he changes back?

"I know you're shy, Harry! Cho told me everything!"

"GERROFFOFME!" If she were a boy, he would have long since poked her one in the eye. As it is, he can't hit a girl. He sends up a frantic plea for help to any deity, wizard or Muggle, who may be listening. _Anything would be better than this, _he prays frantically,_ anything, even Luna's looniness… _

_Looniness_.

"GAHAARGH!" he yowls, and to his satisfaction, she takes a step back. "Ha! I finally have you alone!" he snarls, advancing upon her.

"Eek! H-Harry, what are you—"

Foaming at the mouth would come in really handy right now, but he settles for drooling a bit, and she skitters backwards, nervously. "I AM THE HEIR OF SLYTHERIN! I AM THE NASTY NASTY!" _Oh, great vocabulary, Weasley, really nice going_.

But it's working. She has turned pale and is backpedalling like it's an Olympic sport. "Help!"

_Keep going, Weasley. _"Um. I AM YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE! I WILL REND YOU LIMB FROM LIMB!" He flaps his armsabout a bit.

She lets out a shriek and runs for the door.

"If I ever – um, IF I EVER SEE YOU OUTSIDE THE DEFENSE ASSOCIATION AGAIN, I WILL EAT YOU ALIVE!"

The door slams behind her.

Ron collapses into the armchair, his heart hammering. _Please let this be the last mad girl to barge in here. Please let this be the last mad girl to barge in here._

He doesn't know it, but he's about to get his wish.

* * *

Harry opens the door to the boys' toilets a crack. He peers around, and, finding the corridor empty, slips out. He's quickly found out that Myrtle isn't confined to the girls' bathroom, and with Peeves in there as well, let's just say he's quite prepared to take his chances with the living, thank you very much.

Quickly and quietly, he pads up the stairs, taking the long way round to Gryffindor tower._ It's a bit of a detour_, he acknowledges as he huffs upstairs laden with the heavy Charms volumes, _but at least I won't run into…_

"Marietta!" he gasps as she staggers backwards out of solid wall – _no, out of the Room of Requirement _– and bumps straight into him.

She turns and sees his face. She couldn't have looked more terrified if she were staring down the business end of a Blast-Ended Skrewt.

"AIEEEE!" she screams and makes a mad dash down the corridor, her robes flapping behind her.

Harry stares after her for a moment.

Reflectively, he puts the heavy books down against the wall. Mad girls or no mad girls, this is getting to be a bit thick. More to the point, he wouldn't put it past Peeves to have given him devil's horns or something even worse; his appearance mustbeterrifying, given Marietta's reaction. He looks down at himself, but it's just too dark in here, even by wandlight, and he couldn't see his face without a mirror, anyway.

He sighs. No point terrorizing the rest of Gryffindor Tower. It won't take a minute to have aglance at himself in a looking-glass.

He walks up and down, thinking: _I need to look at myself in the mirror… I need to look at myself in the mirror…_

And it appears, a door in the solid stone. Harry pushes it open and steps in, finding a mirror…

…and two armchairs…

and himself, seated in one of them.


	9. Chapter 9

Harry walked up and down, thinking: _I need to look at myself in the mirror… I need to look at myself in the mirror…_

And it appeared, a door in the solid stone. Harry pushed it open and stepped in, finding a mirror…

…and two armchairs…

and himself, seated in one of them.

* * *

Without conscious thought, his Defense reflexes kicked in and he had his wand out and trained on the impostor before the other had fully registered he was even there.

"Oh, NO!" Ron leapt up from the armchair, but it was too late: Harry had him at wandpoint, and the look in his eyes was flinty. "Harry, it's me! It's Ron!" he shouted before he got hexed, or worse.

"Stay where you are." Harry's eyes flickered, but his wand remained firm.

Ron could see Harry taking him in from head to toe, _Harry_ in every detail, from the glasses to the lightning scar to the bleeding hand to the Muggle shoes Hermione called… flimsolls? Ron started to panic. He didn't know what kind of hexes Harry would throw at a potential Death Eater, and he certainly didn't mean to wait and find out. "Harry, I swear it's me, Ron! I can prove it to you! Ask me anything! Anything only _I_ would know!"

He could see the mental gears turning, and when his friend finally spoke, Ron flinched at the coldness in Harry's gaze.

"What does your Mum give you every Christmas?"

"A Weasley jumper."

"What colour?"

"Maroon."

"_What_ did _who_ do when you were six that made your greatest fear worse?"

"FredandGeorge, turned, my teddy bear, into a spider," he choked out, disjointedly.

"What do the twins call you sometimes?"

Ron resented this, but answered, "Ronnikins."

"Not good enough." Harry's eyes turned colder, if that was possible.

"Ickle Ronnikins!" Ron burst out. "Harry, come on…"

"What else do they call you sometimes?"

"Little bro. Harry…"

The freezing eyes never wavered. For a moment, Ron understood why Harry was such a powerful wizard, or he would have done if he weren't in imminent danger of being hexed into oblivion. "What colour's your bedspread?"

"Orange."

"What's on the poster behind your bed?"

For a panicky moment Ron drew a blank. Then he visualized his room, but just as the poster of the Cannons' goalkeeper making a tricky save appeared in his mind's eye, he felt himself swimming, morphing back, and he closed his eyes because he felt sick and didn't know what to do. Then he opened his eyes, his own again, and looked, looked down from his own height now, into Harry's surprised, marginally more trusting face – only marginally, though, because the "how-do-I-know-you're-not-a-Death-Eater" look had been replaced by a "why-on-earth-are-you-Polyjuicing-into-me" look.

Completely baffled now, Harry lowered his wand. He stared at Ron, trying to work out why Ron would want to turn into him. _What's going on? _It was impossibly strange to see himself turning into Ron, and stranger still now to see Ron wearing his, Harry's, glasses. As though noticing his gaze, Ron sheepishly took them off with his bleeding hand…

Now why would Ron's hand be— 

_Wait_ a minute.

And in a blinding flash of agonized betrayal, the explanation came crashing down on Harry in terrible detail: in an impossibly long instant, he understood with awful clarity precisely why 'Umbridge' had reassigned him to the toilets, the truth about the 'detentions with Snape', and why Ron's hand had bloody words carved into it. His mouth fell open as he stared at Ron, and from Ron's expression of wide-eyed horror, Ron knew he'd worked it out.

Their eyes locked in silence for long moments, and then Harry blurted in pain: "How could you—" Speechless, he tried again: "How could you—" but what words were there to describe the enormity of this detailed, systematic betrayal?

Hardly of his own volition, he whispered: "How _could_ you?"

"Harry, I can explain this—"

"NO, YOU CAN'T!" Harry exploded. "WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO STOP HIDING THINGS FROM ME? I'M NOT A CHILD!"

Ron's stricken expression almost made him relent – almost, but not quite. "Harry, you'd never have let me…"

"YOU'RE RIGHT, I WOULDN'T!" Harry screamed. "BUT YOU KNOW WHAT? THAT DOESN'T GIVE YOU AN EXCUSE TO GO BEHIND MY BACK! FIRST '_DUMBLEDORE MADE YOU SWEAR_', AND NOW THIS! I CAN TAKE CARE OF MYSELF!" He paused, breathing hard. "I can't believe this! Hermione put you up to this, didn't she?"

Ron looked stung. "She didn't 'put me up' to anything, mate."

"Oh, so it was _your_ brilliant idea, all by yourself? I don't believe it. She helped you with the Polyjuice, you're not good enough at Potions to have done it all by yourself," he said coldly. He knew he was being savage, but was past caring.

"W-well, yeah, she did – but," Ron added loyally, "it was my idea, and—"

Harry took a deep breath. "So you were in it together." When he thought of the organized nature of their betrayal – not only keeping things from him and making up excuses, but contriving a detailed fabrication and duping him into believing it – he felt sick. "There never were any detentions with Snape, were there?" he asked quietly.

"N—no, Harry, I'm sorry—" Ron gulped as Harry shook his head in disbelief—"but we just couldn't – I couldn't stand it any more – Harry, you've got to und—"

"_What_ have I got to understand?" Harry snapped. "That you're together in the know, and leaving me out AGAIN? Only this is worse – it's not just that you didn't bother to tell me, now you're planning things behind my back, making up things that aren't true and tricking me into believing them like some kind of idiot! Happy now that you and Hermione have made a fool of me?" he stormed savagely.

"Harry," Ron advanced towards him, palms up in a placating gesture. A trickle of blood wended its way slowly down his right palm, between his second and third fingers. He came closer. "Look, mate, we—"

The 'we' – not including him – made Harry see red. "_Shut_ _up_!" He raised his hands to Ron's chest and pushed him away, hard.

Ron lurched backwards, but then took another step towards him. The look in his eyes made Harry even angrier. Ron took another step forward; they were almost touching. "Harry, please – we just didn't want you to go to any more of those awful det-"

"GET _OFF_!" Ron's tall form looming so close to him filled Harry with disgust, and this time he shoved Ron away so fiercely that he tripped and fell backwards onto his bum. Harry's glasses fell off and he fumbled for them on the floor, not that he could see all that well; anger was filling his vision with a red haze. "STOP DOING THINGS FOR MY OWN GOOD! JUST STOP IT! I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF BEING KEPT IN THE DARK! I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF BEING LIED TO!" He was gasping for breath now. "How do you expect me to trust anything you say after this?" He looked down at the blurred figure of Ron, lounging on his side on the flagstone, with utter contempt. "I've HAD it with the two of you. Just stay away from me. I'll handle things myself from now on."

Finally finding his glasses, he pulled them on and stormed out of the Room of Requirement, seething anger successfully covering up the aching void in his heart.

* * *

Ron stayed curled up on his side, breathing hard against the pain. He'd reached behind him to break his fall; when his injured hand had hit the flagstones, he'd felt the jolt of screaming agony up his entire arm. He curled up protectively around it, gripping his wrist with his left hand, Harry's words floating over his head through the pain. The fall seemed to have jolted the cuts; his whole arm throbbed, blood was welling up again, and he didn't care. He heard a keening sound, and was surprised to find it was coming from him.

_Pull yourself together, Weasley_, he thought bracingly. _You knew this might happen, well, now it's happened, that's all. He'll come round._ But he wasn't sure he believed it, and the keening sound started up again. There was a coldness around his right ear now, and it took him a moment to realize that it was the chill of his tears, rolling sideways down his cheeks and soaking into his hair.

_Pull yourself together, man!_ he chided himself furiously. Hermione'll be coming in soon, you want her to see you looking like this?

Ron took a shuddering breath, then another, trying for calm and collected. Squeezing his eyes shut, he slowly used his good hand to pull himself upright, dragging himself into the chair by main force of will. He plunged his hand blindly into the bowl. He felt the worst of the pulsing-hot pain recede, but there was no potion that could push away the heavy, sinking feeling in his heart.


	10. Chapter 10

It's come crashing down about our ears. I knew it would eventually.

Well, not _knew_, but you know what they say. The truth will out.

Harry's sitting all the way off at the end of the Gryffindor table, picking moodily at his breakfast. I want to go over there and knock some sense into him – how _dare_ he leave Ron in that state! – I was up half the night healing him – but given yesterday's display, once was quite enough. He'll come round. I know he will. At least, I hope so. I mean, we weren't doing anything to hurt him – on the contrary, we wanted him not to suffer.

It's Ron who's suffered for the whole idea, anyway. Ron's moping about like a proper idiot, and I want to knock some sense into him, too, but I've already tried talking to him, and all he does is shrug me off. He won't listen to reason. That night, no matter how much I said that he wasn't doing anything wrong, and that he was really protecting Harry, and that Harry should at least have stopped and listened before flying off the handle like that, he just said we shouldn't have gone behind Harry's back. "He was already feeling left out that summer, remember?" he said. "He kept complaining about having to nick newspapers out of bins and that. So when we just decided to take things into our own hands, and not tell him anything…"

"Because he'd have _stopped_ us, Ron!" I exploded. Boys can be so silly sometimes.

"Well, maybe he should have," Ron said doggedly.

"Oh, honestly! You were the one who was worried he'd lose the use of his hand, remember?"

This gave Ron pause. "Well, yeah, but…"

"But nothing! You were doing it to protect him! I can't believe you don't see that!"

"But that's just it, Hermione!" Ron shouted at me. "He's sick of being _protected_ – shunted away, kept out of things, left out, you know, because of You-Know-Who and that. This summer he was so upset because nobody told him anything, and we were no better than them. We're his friends, we ought to have known he was feeling left out. So if we go all devious on him, who's he got left? We're the only ones he trusts – trust_ed_," he said, a look of pain crossing his face. "If he can't depend on us to be honest with him, who _can_ he depend on?"

I really hate it when I can't find a proper answer to Ron.

* * *

Hi, Sirius.

Hope you're doing all right. Things are OK here, though no-one will believe Voldemort's back, but I'm getting used to it.

I wanted to ask your advice about something. We've got a teacher who gives us detention all the time, she makes us scrub the floors and clean toilets and things, without magic. I had detention all this week and it was very inconvenient, because I had Quidditch practice at the same time. Last week a friend of mine, without my knowing, made up a cock-and-bull story about how my detentions were cancelled, then Polyjuiced into me and went and did all my detentions behind my back! I'm sick of being left out of things, and I'm sick of being treated like a child. I'm thinking of just never speaking to him again, but I do miss him. I don't know what to do. What do you think?

Love,

Harry

* * *

Hi, Harry,

Glad to know you're not letting the bastards grind you down.

To answer your question, well, I'm probably the best person to ask about something like this, if I do say so myself. Being cooped up in this house gives you plenty of time to think, and I was just thinking about friendships, and where friendship ends and family begins. I don't think I realized it when I was younger, but Prongs and Moony your father and Professor Lupin and yes, even Peter, were more family to me than the Most Noble House of Black ever was.

I suppose where I'm going with this is that we did a lot of things that brothers usually do and friends usually don't. We had some blazing rows sometimes. James and I were the worst, I think – Remus and Peter were never as hot-headed as we were. And we did things for each other that friends might not do – like the Shrieking Shack. It wasn't a matter of whether we'd help Remus, so much as how.

That's what I'm getting at: we never gave it a second thought, becoming Animagi for Remus – it's just something you do for your family. It's embarrassing to say things like this at your age, I know, but there are things you do for the ones you like, and then there are the lengths you go to for those you love. There are people – and I think you're lucky to have found friends like that, Harry – whom you can have blazing rows with and have it not matter in the end, who'll lie for you, even lie _to_ you to protect you, and you may get angry with them for that and want to kill them, but you forgive them anyway because when all's said and done, you know they'd cheerfully lay down their lives and die for you. I'd tell you not to break off with your friend for trying to protect you, but I think you'll find that a friend who'd go to such lengths to spare you a bit of bother, who'd Polyjuice into you so that you can play Quidditch while he's scrubbing floors for you, is not going to be that easy to get rid of. I do see why you're angry with him, but really, Harry, taking your punishment is something you should be thanking him for, not telling him off, although you can't always see that at your age. Sorry to come off the heavy godfather, but I suppose living a bit longer does teach you a few things.

One other thing, Harry. I suspect that part of why you're so angry with your friends is something you share with your dad: you can't bear not being in the thick of things. That was something about Prongs: he didn't mind being the one to get punished because it meant he _knew what was going on_ in the detention hall. It was far worse for him to be waiting outside the detention hall knowing that Remus or Peter or I were getting punished, and not knowing what was going on, than to be getting detention himself. He even once explained it a little: he said, "If it's happening to me, I know how bad it is. Even if it's awful, it's OK, because I know. But when it's happening to someone else, it's ten times worse just waiting and wondering."

I'll give you an example of what I mean. One year we had a Defense teacher we called the Dragon Lady. Can't even remember her real name. She was visiting from Romania or some such, where they had really barbaric customs, and she thought all the teachers were too soft on the students at Hogwarts. Before Pomfrey told Dumbledore and he put a stop to it, in detention she'd make students clean out cauldrons stained with caustic gum-thistle juice without magic, and no protective gloves. Anyway, James pulled a prank and I got blamed for it, and I got detention with her. James had been in a couple of times himself, and normally he just laughed it off. This time he was _frantic_. He told her that he was the one to blame. I think the old witch could tell from the way he was acting that punishing me would hurt him far more than anything she could ever do to him, and told him to get out. Then he blew up at me, and screamed and shouted the place down. He was pacing the floor outside that classroom, biting his nails like an expectant father. By the time I got out of detention, he was beside himself, and dragged me to the Hospital Wing, shouting at me the whole time that it was my fault for getting caught, for taking the blame, anything. I gave as good as I got, and we had a spectacular row. The point of this, Harry, is that I'm guessing it's the same for you: you couldn't stand your friend taking your punishment because although you knew how unpleasant it was for you, you could never know exactly how bad it would be for him. You were probably being a bit protective.

Professor Lupin is here, so I'd better go. He sends his love.

Sirius

* * *

Sitting on his bed in the Gryffindor dormitory, the mellow sunshine of late afternoon slanting through the windows, Harry lowered the letter, closing his eyes tightly. He couldn't remember ever having been so ashamed of himself.

He _hadn't_ been feeling protective.

He hadn't even _cared_.

And he hadn't realized it until now.

When he'd seen Ron, for that awful instant when it had all made perfect sense, all he could think about was that Ron and Hermione had been lying to him like all the others, making a fool of him, betraying him.

He put a hand to his eyes, rubbing them under his glasses. _Me, me, me._ He hadn't spared a thought for Ron's well-being, hadn't even been_ bothered_ that he was hurt.

Only now did he realize it, and his own self-centredness made him sick. _I didn't even… his hand was bleeding and I didn't ask him whether he was all right – I shouted at him and then I shoved him away! _

It was doubly reprehensible in the face of what Ron had done for him – he could no longer ignore the selflessness of his friend's actions. There had been no earthly benefit that Ron could gain from that charade; he had done it for no other reason than to take some of Harry's suffering upon himself, to take his place and be hurt in his stead. That had been his only concern – to spare Harry.

And how had Harry repaid him? With harsh words and violence.

Suddenly, he remembered Ron's posture when he had left the Room – huddled on the floor, cradling his right hand. _Oh_, no._ He must have landed on it when he fell_ – with mounting horror, Harry visualized the scene, Ron throwing his hands back to break his fall, landing on his sore hand, aggravating his injury, curling up on the floor in agony. _Oh, _Ron… _That's my thanks for what he did. _

Harry groaned and buried his face in his hands.

"You all right, Harry?" Neville walked into the dormitory, looking alarmed.

"Oh, yeah, thanks, Neville," Harry said quickly, feeling even more of a heel. _Look at Neville. This is how normal people behave – people whose heads aren't so swelled with their own stupid pride and self-importance that they actually give a hoot about others! _"Neville," he blurted before he could stop himself.

"Yes, Harry?"

He didn't know what to say, but he was dying of shame. "If you'd behaved really badly towards a friend, what would you do?"

Neville looked at him mildly. "I'd say I was sorry, and try to make amends, you know, make it up to him. Or her. Done it loads of times, I have – I'm always mucking up something or other."

"No you're not," Harry said, staring down at the comforter. "You're a decent fellow, Neville."

The round-faced boy turned pink and moved shyly closer to Harry's bed. "That's as may be, thanks anyway, Harry," he said, "but decent don't mean you can't make mistakes." He took a deep breath, looking at Harry. "Girl I knew back home – we've known each other since we were little – last summer, she got in with the wrong sort—but you probably don't want to hear this," he broke off diffidently.

"Yeah, I do," said Harry, his curiosity piqued. Besides, no time like the present for learning to give a damn about how others felt. He patted the bed. "Go on, Nev."

"Well. Um. She was going out with a chap who was a nasty piece of work." Harry nodded encouragingly. "Didn't think it was my place to warn her – we weren't related, it wasn't any of my business. But a week before start of term, she came to our house crying. He'd cast Imperius on her, and tried to—well—" Neville's innocent face darkened and he sat down on the bed. "Magical Law Enforcement got there before anything happened, but—"

Harry patted the plump shoulder. Neville sighed. "I told her I was sorry. I'd known he wasn't a good sort, and I didn't warn her. She was very nice about it, but that's what I mean, Harry. You can't help making mistakes sometimes."

Harry sighed. "Yeah, but what if a friend of yours – what if your best mate was hurt, and instead of helping, you shouted at him and then pushed him to the floor?"

Neville turned to him and gaped. "Why would I…I mean… I wouldn't know," he finished helplessly.

Harry flopped back onto the bed, hands behind his head, staring up at the canopy of the curtains. "No, Neville," he sighed, "I don't suppose you would, would you?"

He lay there a long time after Neville left, thinking about it. 'Mistake', that was the word Neville had used. Yeah, right. A mistake was not telling a friend that you didn't trust the boy she was going out with. A mistake could even be not knowing that your best mate would feel left out if you made plans to protect him behind his back. But laying into a friend, not caring whether or not he was hurt – no, knowing full well that he was suffering, but not caring – that was beyond a mistake. It was callous, inexcusable selfishness.

Harry got up, knowing that he couldn't fully make amends, knowing that he had to try.


	11. Chapter 11

If there was one constant in the universe, Harry thought, it was that the Common Room would always be full of people whenever you most wanted it to be quiet. Tonight was no exception, but Harry couldn't put it off. _Wouldn't_.

He looked around; every available seat seemed to be taken, and a few groups were sitting on the floor. The noise was mind-boggling. Dean and Seamus were singing – if you could call it that – loudly to a small audience, harmonizing what seemed to be a cross between "Loch Lomond" and "Where Did You Get That 'At?" Angelina and Alicia, robes slung up over their shoulders to make room for a pair of ridiculous conjured hoop skirts in shocking pink and aquamarine, were being asked to dance by a top-hatted Katie Bell doing her best impression of an Edwardian gentleman. Neville and Ginny were holding each other up, they were laughing so hard.

He brightened at the sight of _them_; Hermione was studying in an armchair, Ron curled up at her feet. For a moment he stopped, just staring at them, remembering what Sirius said in his letter, trying to deny the warmth he felt when he saw them together. When they were there, even in the direst situations, he felt _safe_, protected, as though nothing could harm him; or at the very least, that whoever wanted to kill him would have to try a little harder. They always protected him, like—He clamped down on any further thought.

Something wasn't quite right, though. Ron's colour was off, and he was drooping a bit, like a plant somebody had forgotten to water. He was holding his book in his left hand, and Harry knew for a fact that Ron wasn't left-handed. And the book Hermione was reading… Under cover of the noisy crowd, he moved closer until he could read the title: _Simple Healing Charms for Beginners._

He felt a chill go through him, but couldn't think of a way to approach him, approach them. Given what he'd done to Ron,it was Hermione he was afraid would bite his head off; Ron was actually far more likely to forgive him. He tried to remember how Ron had patched it up after their falling-out during the Triwizard Tournament fiasco; he'd just gone into his tent and said hello, hadn't he? That seemed like as good an opening as any.

_Here goes. _He walked over and plopped down on the floor next to Ron. Ron looked at him once, bewildered, then turned his attention resolutely to whatever he was pretending to study.

_I see him come and sit next to me, to us. Does this mean I'm forgiven? It can't be that simple, surely. Then again, maybe it is. _

Hermione didn't move a muscle. She sat still as a statue – unnaturally so.

_After three days of not talking to us, Harry comes and sits next to Ron at my feet. Well, I'm not settling for anything less than a proper apology._

"Hi," Harry hazarded, wondering whether Ron was going to clock him one.

"Hi," Ron answered. His tone was tentative, but he ventured a shy smile. Harry smiled too, and for a moment it was as though nothing had happened, and Harry was tempted to just let things pass, to ask Ron how Quidditch practice was going and whether he'd managed to produce those three feet of parchment for Flitwick. He opened his mouth to do so, knowing that Ron would go along, and it would be as if the whole fight had never happened. Thank goodness for friends like Ron, who didn't expect you to produce elaborate apologies and long-winded explanations, with whom you could just be yourself—

"_I'd say I was sorry, and try to make amends."_

"I'm sorry," Harry blurted.

"What? I'm the one who sh—"

But whatever Ron might have been about to say was lost in Hermione's tirade. "And well you should be!" Hermione slammed her book shut with a snap. In deference to the people around them, she kept her voice low, but it had an undertone of sharpness. "Harry, you've got to control that temper of yours…"

Harry looked guilty while Ron tried to remonstrate. "Hermione, give it a—"

"You know perfectly well we were just trying to help! You were just plain unfair, not to mention violent. I found him in the Room of Requirement, practically a wreck! Did you know you broke his wrist?"

Harry's blood chilled. "What?" He'd broken a bone for Ron?

"Shut it, Hermione!" Ron muttered urgently.

"I _will not_. It's high time Harry faced the consequences of his actions. He wouldn't tell me, but I noticed when Ron couldn't use his hand at all the next day…"

Ron must have seen Harry's stricken expression, because he turned to Harry and started talking very quickly. "It was just a hairline fracture, mate, nothing to worry about. Contact with Dark objects sometimes does that, stresses the bone, or the—"

"Go on," Harry said to Hermione, cold all over.

"I finally got the story out of him at breakfast – it was like pulling teeth – and _then_ I tried to get him to go to Madam Pomfrey, but he was so intent on keeping your secrets that he wouldn't. So I skived off History of Magic and went to the library…"

"Answer to everything," Ron grinned. "If You-Know-Who ever attacked Hogwarts, Hermione'd probably run off to the library. 'The antidote for Dark Lords has got to be in here somewhere!'"

It was not one of his better efforts, and he wilted under Hermione's blazing stare. After cowing him into silence, she went on, "I found a few charms, and then had a try at healing the bone myself." She impaled Harry with a piercing stare. "It's a good job I managed it, or else I swear it'd have been your fault if he'd suffered permanent damage…"

"How is it now?" Harry turned to Ron urgently, his gaze encompassing Hermione.

"All right," Ron said shortly, avoiding Harry's eyes, keeping his right hand behind his back.

"No thanks to your temper, Harry. Honestly, you really have to…"

"Oh, give it a rest, Hermione," Ron cut in, then turned to Harry. "Harry, I'm sorry, I'm the one who should be sorry, you told us how you hate to be left out, and I just went and blundered all over—"

"Shut it, Ron!" Harry couldn't believe what he was hearing. "You meant well, and I..."

Ron cut in. "Yeah, but I didn't _mean_ to make you feel left out or alone, or make you angry or whatever," Ron seemed unable to stop now. "And I know you want to be told the truth, but you'd never have let me do it if I had told you, would you? And I just couldn't take any more. I mean, I really was afraid she'd do something that would be permanent, and every day you looked worse than the last, and now I know what it feels li—" He broke off, and snaked his hand further behind his back.

"Ron. Shut. Up." He wanted to reach out and snatch Ron's hand to him, force him to show him the injury, but he knew he had no right. "Look, you went to Umbridge instead of me, _you_ took _my_ punishment and got carved _up_ instead of me, and _you're_ sorry?" Harry snapped. "You've got nothing to be sorry about. Just _shut up_, all right?"

"All right." There was a trace of hope in the voice. Hearing it, Harry ploughed on, trying to get it all said before he lost his nerve.

"I'm the one who shouted at you and shoved you, I'm the one who broke your wrist, I'm the one who didn't say so much as a thank-you. I'm the one who should be apologizing. Ron, I – I never meant it, any of it." He saw Ron relax. "I didn't mean it, you know I'd never hurt you on purpose, don't you?"

Hermione sniffed, but Ron said, "'Course," and gave Harry a tentative grin, forgiving him so completely it broke his heart. "Remember what you said during the First Task, when I was being such a git?" he smiled. "You said, "It's all right, I don't want to hear it." We're blokes, we don't waste time with sorries and all that, right?"

"Right," Harry forced himself to smile, and extended his hand. "Now can I have a look?" he asked. "Please?"

A slow, friendly smile spread over Ron's features; it warmed Harry's heart. The amiable blue eyes met his, with a trace of impishness. "Show you mine if you'll show me yours."

There was no room to protest – how dare he, after what Ron had done for him? – so he reluctantly held out his right hand for inspection. His friend took it in his left, and Harry mirrored the gesture as Ron apprehensively did the same.

Harry winced at the sight.

His own hand was healing even better than a few days ago; the swelling was gone, and all that was left were the raised purple scars, fast settling into something more permanent but less colourful. It hardly even hurt any more. But Ron's hand was still inflamed and tender; the cuts on the back were gaping in one or two places, as though—as though blood had been forced out of them explosively by an impact. Harry swallowed. As he turned it over, he felt Ron flinch, and he started; theswollen flesh was obviously still painful to the touch. The palm, too, was scraped raw, no doubt a result of breaking the fall against the flagstone. "Sorry."

"'S all right," Ron said gamely. Trying to be gentle, looking at the damage which he had caused, Harry was disgusted with himself. The wrist Hermione had healed seemed intact, but there was a telltale band of bruising encircling it, like a painful fetter.

_How did _I_ come to this?_ Harry thought. Before he'd ever even heard of Hogwarts, years of 'Harry-hunting' had made him vow that he would never, _ever_ be a bully - and he'd picked a fine time to start._ Ron didn't even make a move towards me, and I hit him anyway. And it wasn't even the first time, _he thought miserably – _I chucked something at Ron during that stupid row over the Goblet, and it cut his forehead open, but he didn't even fight back, he just stood there and took it._

"Why don't you ever hit me back?" he blurted. Of all the things he wanted to say, this was definitely not on his list, but…

Ron stared at him, and to Harry's astonishment, he laughed. "Because I don't want to, you great git."

"Yeah, but you should. I'm so awful to you…."

"Oh, no, Harry, don't say that. You're awful to everyone, not just me." Ron's face was full of fiendish glee.

"Shut up, you great prat," Harry smiled half-heartedly. "No, I'm serious, Ron. Why don't you ever hit me back?"

Ron looked helplessly at Hermione. "I think I liked it better when he wasn't talking to us, at least then he wasn't asking impossible questions! How the hell should I know, Harry? I could no more hit you than I could hit Ginny back – you've seen her fly at me a few times, right? She knew she could get away with it because her big brother would never lay a fing…"

Harry stared at him open-mouthed, and Ron's ears turned red as he realized what he was implying. "'Sides," he added hurriedly, "it's not fair to hit a midget in glasses, is it."

Harry laughed explosively and pushed him in the shoulder, very, very gently.

Above them, Hermione snorted.

"_What_?" said Ron.

Harry looked up at her. "Hermione, I really am sorry I acted like such a prat. I just… I couldn't help it, there's no excuse, all right?" She looked at him mildly, expectantly, and he felt compelled to go on to satisfy that demanding gaze. "Um, I know you were doing it to protect me and I should have thanked you instead of being stupid…"

She closed the book in her lap, abandoning all pretense of reading. "You don't get it at all, do you?" she asked, mildly. "Harry, why did I help Ron make the potion?"

"Um." He felt as if she was quizzing him the night before a test, and had an irrational fear of failing. "Because he couldn't make it by himself."

She was looking at him as though he were a particularly stupid species of Flobberworm. "I'll accept that. And why did he want to take the potion?"

"…um… because he wanted to pass for me in detention."

"What for?" she asked in her I'll-keep-at-it-no-matter-how-stupid-you-are voice.

Harry hesitated.

"Hermione, can't we just forget it?" Ron exclaimed. "It's turned out all right, and—"

"No," she retorted in a tone that brooked no argument. "Well, Harry?"

Harry knew the answer, well, sort of, as close as he could guess, but he didn't really want to admit it, not out loud. He settled for a half-truth. "Because …he didn't want me to get hurt any more."

Ron was looking away now, his face flaming. "Very good," Hermione said approvingly. "Why not?"

Harry fell silent, because this was something he could feel in his bones, but to say it out loud would be… He _couldn't_. Ron was resolutely watching the antics of Alisheena and Shalicia – that should be, Angelicia and Alina – er, _Angelina_ and _Alicia_ – calm, stay CALM -

She huffed exasperatedly. "_Why_ do both of us not want you to get hurt any more, Harry?"

This was easier. "B-because we're friends."

She leant down towards them. "And we care what happens to each other. Don't we?"

Harry nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

"Ron?" She poked him in the shoulder. "_Don't_ we?"

"Yeah," he muttered, staring at the laughing crowd at the end of the Common Room. Harry followed his gaze. Angelina and Alicia had Banished the hoop skirts; now they'd hoisted Neville onto their shoulders and were proclaiming him "Most Eligible Bachelor of the Year!" Katie had tried to charm a picture on the cover of _Witch_ _Weekly_ to look like him, but had only succeeded in adding horns to the man in the photograph, whose stream of invective had added to the din. Swaying on their shoulders, Neville looked slightly seasick; his face was redder than Ron's, well on the way to purple.

"Ron," Hermione prodded gently. "Why did you do it?"

He tore his eyes off the spectacle. "Oh, give it a rest, Hermione."

Harry felt a guilty pleasure that Ron seemed to have replaced him in the hot seat for Hermione's oral exam, and pretended to be interested in the other Gryffindors. Ginny and a girl Harry knew vaguely as Demelza were playing lovestruck groupies now, shrieking and weeping dramatically and falling at Neville's feet, while three girls in Ginny's year were striking mock-seductive poses, vying for the attention of the 'eligible bachelor'. Neville's face was still scarlet, but he was laughing now and playing along. He raised an eyebrow and twirled an imaginary moustache, pretending to choose between the girls.

Hermione slipped off the chair to sit on Ron's other side, and gave him a look that would melt steel. "Why, Ron?" she said relentlessly.

"Oh, good one, Gin-Gin!" Ron pointed to the Gryffindor merriment with the air of one hurriedly changing the subject. "Look at that, will you?" Ginny had stopped weeping and wailing just long enough to pull out her wand and give Neville a long, shiny handlebar moustache, which he resumed twirling with renewed vigour.

"_Ron_!" Hermione snapped.

"_What?_"

"Why-did-you-do-it!" 

Ron made an impatient gesture, obviously at the end of his tether. "He'd been at it non-stop for three weeks, hadn't he!" he burst out. "Could you just give it a bloody rest, Hermione!"

"No, I couldn't!" Hermione snapped at Ron. "I _can't_ give it a rest until Harry understands how much we love him!"

Harry and Ron turned to look at her as though she'd grown a third eye.

"Oh, _honestly_!" Hermione was undaunted. "_Boys_, you're impossible. Love, love, _love_! The word doesn't bite. Harry," - he started guiltily - "don't you see? Ron's so fond of you that he willingly let his hand be cut up so yours wouldn't have to! I'm so fond of you that I willingly made an illegal potion that could have got me expelled!"

He didn't need her telling him he didn't deserve it. "Well, maybe I'm not worth it!" Harry snapped, his face burning now.

"Don't be stupid," Ron finds his voice, "'course you are."

Hermione's eyes blazed. "That's not the _point_. You're worth it to me, and you're worth it to Ron, and that's what matters. You _can't_ just act as if you're all _alone_ any more." She had never sounded more earnest. "Whatever you get into, _we're in it with you_. So when you hurt yourself, you're hurting _us_." She turned to Ron. "He's got to understand that!" Ron's silence appeared to infuriate her. "Look, Ron, I know you've been to Egypt, but this is no time for an impression of the Sphinx!"

Ron sniggered. "Good one, Hermione." His eyes flickered to Harry. "You know, she's right."

"But I never wanted you to get hurt on my acc—"

"_Harry_, did you _honestly_ think Ron – or I – would _ever_ be able to stand by and watch you being hurt without doing something about it?" Hermione started in again. "Remember third year? The Shrieking Shack? Remember Ron saying that anyone who wanted to kill you would only do it over our dead bodies? Any of that ring a bell?" Her eyes locked onto him, seriously.

'Over our dead bodies'…

_Please, no, not Harry. _

_Stand aside, silly girl._

_Please!_

A stunned silence followed, broken only by the Gryffindors' shouts of jollity. Count Longbottom was apparently having trouble selecting a bride. "I never wanted her to," Harry whispered, "I never wanted her to die because of—"

"Oh stop whining," Hermione said in a rush. "It's not because of you, it's because we love you. We'd rather get hurt than see you hurt, silly. We'd rather die than see you get killed."

"Hang on a mo," Ron interrupted. "Who's 'she', Harry?"

_'We'd rather die…'_

"_AVADA KEDAVRA!" High, cold laughter._ Harry shook his head to clear it.

Ron turned to him, eyes wide, but his words were directed at Hermione. "His Mum!" he exclaimed.

Hermione's jaw dropped. "I see…"

He gripped Harry's forearm with his good hand, trying to shake him out of his glazed stupor. "Harry, I get it now," he said. "Your Mum…"

"Look, she died for me and I didn't ask her to, it was brilliant and brave and everything, all right," the torrent of words burst out of him and he couldn't stop them to save his life, "and Dad died to protect me and it was wonderful and brave, but that's _enough_! I don't want anyone else jumping in to protect me, thank you very much! I don't need any more deaths on my conscience! Mum, and Dad, and Cedric…"

Ron stared at him, flabbergasted.

"Harry…" Hermione said carefully. "You're not blaming yourself, are you?"

"No," Harry said. "But I'd rather take my chances from now on."

"Take your _chances_?" Ron looked at him like an interesting exhibit.

"Yes," Harry said. "I prefer only having myself to worry about."

"So you don't worry about us, then?" Hermione said mildly.

"Well, of course I do," Harry retorted, "but I don't want anyone _protecting_ me!"

"Tough." Ron, who had been growing redder and redder as he listened to the exchange. "Harry, you went into the Chamber to protect Ginny. You'd save _me_ if I was in danger, wouldn't you?"

"Well, of course I…"

"You'd protect Hermione? And Sirius? Even if it meant risking your life?"

"What kind of question is.."

"Well, it's a two-way Portkey, innit?" Ron snapped. "People you'd give your life _for_ are generally people who'd give their lives _for_ you. That's just the way it is."

"But I don't want you to get killed because of m—"

"Of course you don't." Hermione snapped, "but it doesn't make any difference. We won't stand by when you're in danger any more than _you_ would if _we_ were. If it's any consolation, we don't want to get killed either, but that's neither here nor there. Whether you like it or not, you're not going to be left to your own devices any more. It's not just _you_ any more, it's _us_. Whatever happens." She seemed to calm down now that she'd said her piece, and smiled slightly. "Just accept it, why can't you?"

This time, Harry could find no answer. He sat there with his mouth open. His senses seemed heightened, and he was acutely aware of Ron's shoulder warm against his own, Hermione's knee against his head, the noises in the common room, and Ron's damaged hand, which had suffered pain for his sake, still lying in his lap. "I'm - I'm just not used to it," he confessed finally, "but I could try."

"Good... Oh, no!" Hermione looked to where Lee Jordan had tried to make the 'wedding' proceedings more realistic by Transfiguring himself to resemble a Rite-Performing Wizard, and had given himself a third eye. Ginny was trying to remove it now, to no avail, and as they watched, Neville made an attempt and set Lee's hair on fire.

Hermione leapt up from her place on the floor. "_Aguamenti_!" she yelled, and a stream of water shot out of her wand, putting Jordan's hair out.

"Oh, Hermione, thank goodness, help us get rid of this stupid eye…" someone said.

"Yeah, we can't go to Pomfrey with this, she'll kill us…"

With a long-suffering sigh, she walked over to try and undo the spell.

"Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase 'flaming hair', didn't it?" Ron deadpanned.

"Yeah, and I thought your family was bad…" Harry grinned. They watched Hermione interrogate Lee as a knot of Gryffindors formed around her.

When she had completely disappeared from view in the huddle, Ron exhaled gustily and leant back against the chair. He draped his arm across the vacant seat cushion so that it lay warmly against the back ofHarry's shoulders. "You know, I grew up with five older brothers," he said, "and when Mum was having Ginny I thought, great, a chance to be somebody's elder brother for once. I swore I wouldn't be like the twins, I'd show him the ropes and we'd be more like mates than brothers, and, you know, I'd look out for him and watch over him like Bill and Charlie always did for the rest of us, and protect him," he sighed, not heavily, and smiled, remembering, "and wouldn't you know it, it was a girl. Don't get me wrong, Ginny's smashing and all, but it means I never did get the chance to have a little brother…" his voice became almost inaudible as he mumbled something that could be, "until now." Or possibly "Pass the mustard," Harry thought. One of those, anyway.

He was probably imagining the tightening of Ron's arm round his shoulders, too.

_Coward_.

A cheer went up from the assembled Gryffindors and Lee emerged from the knot of people, his face normal once more. Even his hair was unharmed.

Hermione stalked back to Ron and Harry without a backward glance. "I can't really stand to be around anyone but the DA now," she sat down on Ron's other side again, "at least until the rest of them come to their senses."

She leant back against the chair, silent for once, and it gave Harry the courage to say something, anything, to let these two know how much they meant to him; Heaven knew he'd been more than outspoken about everything he _didn't_ like…

"Um, Hermione?"

"Yes, Harry?"

"Remember when I told you about the Dementors at Privet Drive?"

"Don't remind me," Hermione shuddered. Harry felt Ron pull him closer, and rub his hand against his shoulder as though to reassure himself that Harry was still there.

"Well, there's something I left out," Harry said, "nothing serious," he added hurriedly as both their heads snapped round to look apprehensively at him. "You know I cast a Patronus, but you didn't ask what my happy thought was."

"No, we didn't," said Hermione.

"We thought…" the tips of Ron's ears started to turn scarlet. "Maybe, er, Cho." He grinned and wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

"It was like this." As Harry spoke, he was once again back in the dark and slimy Hell that had been Privet Drive that night. "The Dementors had me and Dudley surrounded. I couldn't think of a single happy thought. I tried to cast the Patronus a few times, but nothing came out." He burrowed into Ron's side, and Ron obliged by gripping him tightly. "I never told you how close they came, either. One of them…" He swallowed. "It got right up to my face. It was so cold and depressing, I kept trying to cast the Patronus, but I couldn't think of a happy thought to save my life."

"Literally," Ron joked nervously, while Hermione let out a little whimper.

"So how _did_ you get away, Harry?" she asked.

"It was right on top of me and Dudley," Harry ignored the pounding of his heart, "and I thought, this is it. I'll never go back to Hogwarts, I'll never live to be seventeen, I'll never see Sirius or Dumbledore again…" He braced himself. "It opened its mouth to give me the Kiss. And I distinctly remember thinking "I'm never going to see Ron or Hermione again—"

Hermione cried out softly. Ron's arm was tense,wrapped so tightly around him now that it was as if he was trying to pull him right inside his body.

Harry took a shaky breath, drawing warmth from Ron's one-armed embrace. "The minute I thought of you two, it—it was like a door opening, and something rushing in – something _warm_. The Dementor was right in my face, but it was all right again, because suddenly, I had the strength to cast the Patronus Charm, _you_gavemethestrengthtocastit," he babbled self-consciously, "and, well, you know the rest. I–" He blurted it out before he could lose his nerve. "I thought you ought to know that - that _you_weremyhappythought."

Hermione turned shining eyes on him, tears spilling down her face. "Oh, _Harry_," she said. Then she lunged across Ron to envelop him in a hug. They fell, Harry blushing, Hermione sobbing, into Ron's lap.

"See, Hermione?" Ron's voice sounded from above them. "I always told you I was prettier than Cho!" Harry burst out laughing in spite of himself. Ron reached down to ruffle Harry's hair, and Harry was irresistibly reminded of the twins ruffling Ron's. Harry fidgeted so that he ended up lying on the carpet, head pillowed on Ron's bony knee. It was uncomfortable, but there was nowhere else he'd rather be. He looked up at Ron, noticing that his face was an interesting shade of vermillion.

There was so much more he wanted to say. He could say a hundred soppy things that would be not only embarrassing, but redundant. One thing, though, had to be said. "I've taken a lot of things out on you two this year," he said, staring at the leg of the sofa where Parvati and Padma were explaining the ancient magic of the fakirs to a girl with a quill in her hand and an inkblot on her cheek. "You never did anything to deserve it, any of it."

"Pure as the driven snow, that's us." The warmth in Ron's voice was palpable. "We know, idiot. Just please, don't shut us out, all right? Do let us help you, mate. Even if Hermione is a pain sometimes—"

"_Excuse_ me!" Harry felt her head drop onto Ron's other knee. "Ow, your knees are bony."

"Well, so's your head, and you don't see me complaining."

"Oh, this is ridiculous." Harry felt, rather than saw, her fumble for her wand and cast a Cushioning Charm. All three of them sighed with relief. "Ah, that's better."

"She's useful," Ron said. "Reckon we should keep her around, right, Harry?"

"Well, I'll have to think about that…" Harry pretended to think about it, and was hit with a sofa cushion. He tossed it back in Hermione's general direction, and soon the three were involved in a free-for-all pillow fight.

Behind them, some of the Gyrffindors had launched into an impromptu rendering of "Happy Days Were Here Again."

As he rolled around on the floor with Ron and Hermione, Harry couldn't help thinking that whatever happened, it would be just a little bit better as long as he was with his friends.


End file.
